24 hours after PoE XBOX announcement, Marvel Heroes showcases how to do everything wrong

Marvel Heroes just launched their "Biggest Update Ever" which, hooboy, broke a whole bunch of stuff and they're doing this update as part of prep for console compatability. I've tried to be as optimistic as possible here but, hooboy, as much as I like the game and like Gazillion this update was handled so poorly. Here is a short summary of what NOT to do.

1: Using PC Players to beta test for console

For perspective, here is the current patch notes : http://forums.marvelheroes.com/discussion/307419/marvel-heroes-2016-2-0-patch-notes#latest and they're going to need about 3 more patches around that size to get the game ready for console launch. Everything between now and console launch is all beta testing for consoles.

2: Breaking everything.

They changed how every character, artifact, peice of gear, stat, and most in game item works.

For those of you not aware of Marvel Heroes Monetization works, its a ARPG hero brawler type game, in which new characters are available for in game and premium currency and a large majority of stuff they sold were convenience boosts. They broke all the characters and all of the boosts with their "Largest Update Ever". They changed the UI on the PC version to make it abundantly clear they were retooling the game for consoles and long time PC players do not have the option to do anything with the UI to get it into a more familiar state.

Here is the best part of all of it, above and beyond them breaking everything that players have either worked hard for or given them money for in a blatant attempt to get the game "console" ready, they haven't announced their console version yet. So players that have ordered the preorder content (every year they post up an advance pack with all the upcoming year's heroes), have just been patiently waiting for that stuff for about year now and the company hasn't even been working on that preorder content.

Now here is the big one

3) Silencing player feedback

For months players have been saying that the developers and moderator teams have been removing critical feedback like "This isn't fun" and "This isn't ready to go live" and "Please don't do this" from the test forum and coordinating with the reddit mod team to the same there. (This is in regards to Marvel Heroes, not path of exile)

So you might read that and say "Yea, well, sometimes players can be really nonhelpful and overly emotional with the feedback, fill it with expletives"

But here is one core example, in Marvel they have this character named Silver Surfer. He is a cosmic entity that has The Power Cosmic and a surfboard. Now dashing around on Silver Surfer was previously one of the most awesome things in the game. They changed, not just him but movement skills in general to such a degree so as to make that not viable without about 10 times the amount of effort from the player to achieve a similar but greatly diminished effect.

So thats one perspective on player experience in regards to console compatibility for an ARPG or MMO launch on console. It represents the destruction of a lot of time and value We've invested or achieved with the product and a whole lot of being told to "Shut up and take it". Gazillion did a very bro thing by showing GGG what not to do though.

Dont worry, GGG wont silence player feedback, they got rather good at the blizzard approach of ignoring all players, and only replying to praise.

Marvel Heroes is one of the greatest games ever, dude. It's tied with D3 as the best ARPG, IMO. Yeah.....no. But in B4 someone comes in shilling for Marvel Heroes, lol.

Yeah, I played MH a while back and it was pretty okay. I enjoyed warping around as Scarlet Witch blowing everything up, and I really liked the shared areas where you could fight random bosses with like 30 other people. I think the area was called midtown or something- that was fun.

I wasn't particularly good at the game and I never did super high-end content, but I thought its strong points were massive co-op, lots of interesting heroes, and fun arcade-y skills that blow stuff up.

I've heard that pretty much all of that is gone, and that's unfortunate. I never really knew Gazillion very well (I like to think I know GGG pretty well), so I can't say that their recent actions are out of character.

This is a great example for GGG of what NOT to do, as you said. I do not think that GGG is at any risk of repeating these mistakes, although I'm watching the XBOX release closely. I might want to try it out if it goes well, and I might want to stop giving GGG money if it doesn't. It's tough to tell at the moment.

Game is extremely boring ... :(

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Maswasnos wrote:

Yeah, I played MH a while back and it was pretty okay.

That was my reaction as well. I quit playing pretty early on as I was extremely crunched for stash space, and none of my friends were interested in the game. The concept seemed fine, but they could have been a bit less stingy with the pay-for-stash.

Will GGG repeat the mistakes outlined in the OP? Way too soon to tell. Leaning towards no. The sky-is-falling camp is a bit of a joke right now, but I am like 1% concerned. Enough to say here - please, GGG, don't drop the sky.

You should have posted this in feedback possibly. It would fit well there.